


Vermillion And White

by subtropicalStenella



Series: 5 for 500 [2]
Category: Siege Of Mandalore - Fandom, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Gen, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-07
Updated: 2017-09-07
Packaged: 2018-12-25 02:41:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12026412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subtropicalStenella/pseuds/subtropicalStenella
Summary: 5 for 500 Prompt for Countess of Biscuit: 3) The Clone Wars, Siege of Mandalore: Troopers in the 332nd excitedly painting their armor in honor of Ahsoka; Fluff, Gen





	Vermillion And White

**Author's Note:**

  * For [countessofbiscuit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/countessofbiscuit/gifts).



“Rex, why is there a requisition order for starfighter hull paint in  _ Fiery Bronze 3 _ buried in this stack of reports?” she asks, nose-deep in said reports as she walks into the hangar. By the shipping date it would have arrived yesterday, but she hadn't heard anything about it, and  _ paint _ was the last thing they needed to break a damn Siege. Especially the wrong color paint, the color codes for  _ 501st Blue  _ and whatever this was were impossible to mistake. 

 

“Ah  _ crap _ . Aces, you were supposed to keep her occupied!” Kix yells, stripping off a filter mask, up to his elbows in the orangey-gold paint, a spraygun in his hand. 

Aces, the shiny that had been tailing after her like a lost puppy all day, peers in from the doorway, past her horns, grinning sheepishly. “Sorry, she insisted on finding Rex.”

“Wh… What is this?”

 

The paint arrived alright, and it's already in use by dozens of clones, but not just on the starfighters. Kix is standing in front of a workbench loaded with helmets, all of them taped up with masking lines or stencils to block the new paint. All around the hangar, clones are peeling the stencils off completed pieces. Vambraces, chest plates, greaves, whatever. Every clone has some piece of armor repainted, dark orange-bronze layered over the 501st Blue or accenting it.

 

“It was  _ supposed  _ to be a surprise,” Rex grumbles over her shoulder, holding his rerebraces--his orange-bronze rerebraces with the same stripes-and-diamonds pattern as her armbands--in one hand. 

“Wh…?”

 

Kix strips his polytex gloves off, picks up a helmet off the far end of the table, and starts carefully peeling the stencilling off, revealing the white underneath. Two diamonds just below the center fin, flanking thin, angular stripes that carried down and across the glassteel visor in a sweeping curve.  _ Her _ stripes. Her markings on something like sixty helmets, sixty clone “faces”, and those are just the ones she can see. There's more all around the hangar, getting further detail work. 

Jesse and three others start pulling flimsiplast off the nearest Z-95, the material blocking out more stripes-and-diamonds on the nose and wings.

 

“Some of us kept our old faces,” Rex tells her, as she slowly takes the helmet from Kix, staring at the new design. “Me, Jesse, the usual gang, but, well… New General, new armor.”

“I-I’m not a General,” she answers shakily, swallowing hard. She can feel her throat closing up. She's not a lot of things, not anymore, but they never seemed to care. They loved and respected her all the same. maybe more now.

“And we aren't the 501st anymore,” Rex says gently, his hand warm on her shoulder. “But we are  _ yours,  _ sir.” 

“I-I-I--” 

 

Her face crumples and she bursts into tears, clutching the helmet and its slightly tacky new paint to her chest. The next thing she knows, she's surrounded on all sides by apologetic, frantic, paint-splattered clones. The few not hugging her are pummeling Rex about the head and shoulders for upsetting her with this dumb idea, for letting them go through with it. They're sorry, they're  _ so  _ sorry, they can strip the new stuff off most of it, the paint hasn't cured yet and it--

 

“ _ Don't! _ ” she exclaims, scrubbing her eyes clear with the heel of her hand and smiling wetly up at them. She doesn't have so far to look up as she used to. “Don't take it off, I love it. Really.” 

  
There's a lot of relieved sighs and laughter, and she joins in, squeaking a little as her men do their damnedest to squash her and each other in their embrace.  _ Her  _ men.


End file.
